Aetha managed to get to her feet, but then she couldn’t move. She still felt foreign in her own body, disoriented in the moment. Was this actually happening? Chill wind gusted through the windows, screaming on the winding steps of the dungeon’s stairways, sliding between her skin and the sheer robe she wore. It was cold, but it made her skin feel hot, stirred a heat that surged up through her body and burned in her chest and her face. She shivered, and something about that movement made the beastly woman advance.

Large, quick, heavy steps brought the huge body close. Aetha flinched back and hit the wall behind her. She’d never felt so weak. With honest fear in her eyes, Aetha stared up at the woman’s bladed helmet. Aetha struggled to breathe, but managed only a whisper, “Come to curse me again? Beast?”

The large woman leaned down, helmet close. Aetha gasped in distress and pinned herself back, then held her breath when one great, scaled hand pressed to her chest. The gauntlet had been taken. This was just skin, strong fingers, claws, a smooth, hot palm against the skin of Aetha’s chest. Aetha’s breath swelled against that hand, and where she’d struggled to breathe a moment ago, now her breaths were small and quick and out of control.

From beneath the beast’s helm, a low growl came. Aetha, thoughtless, reached a hand up to the beast’s face. It didn’t flinch or move away from her at all. Aetha touched the jaw beneath the mask, ran her fingertips up to the hard line of a cheek, lifted her wrist to push the mask up just far enough to see the beast’s mouth. Thin lips, dark, lifting slightly to show sharp teeth behind. Aetha felt her fear twisting inside of her, becoming something else that she didn’t understand. She stared at the woman’s mouth, feeling small, small beneath this predator, this hunting creature.

“What do you want of me?” Aetha asked, watching her hand as though it wasn’t her own hand, moving her fingers to touch the corner of the beast’s lips. “Is it a taste? A feast? Mere regicide?”

The beast’s hand on Aetha’s chest slid down, clawtips tracing a line to her stomach, moving to her side. It explored the lines of Aetha’s muscles, the softness of her side, as though trying to choose where to pierce her. Aetha found her own eyes moving to the scales on the beast’s body, seeing the wounds she herself had cut, the lines of blood. She’d been thinking about those lines, this body. Aetha didn’t notice her own movement until she saw her hand sliding over the beast’s body, tracing her sternum, feeling the strength of her abdomen.

Then the beast bent low, her head close, her revealed mouth beside Aetha’s face, and Aetha no longer tried to understand herself. She whispered, “Kill me if you want,” and held the beast’s face as she put her lips to the red chin, tasting smooth skin. The beast pressed teeth to Aetha’s neck but didn’t bite. Hands moving behind her, the beastly woman pulled Aetha from the wall, almost lifting her up as she carefully pulled their bodies together. Aetha’s skin, from head to toe, burned. Her lungs ached as she struggled to breathe. Her hands moved swiftly, sliding, pressing. Aetha moved her mouth to the corner of the beast’s mouth, wanting to taste her dark lips, her shining teeth.

There was a metallic slam and a shout from above, somewhere up the stairs. The beastly woman pulled away an instant, throwing herself up the stairs. She bolted like a scared animal.

Aetha grabbed at the empty air, fell against the wall, gasped desperately to try and catch her breath. She was burning and freezing at once, legs and arms shaking, heart beating so hard she could feel it in her chest and her head. She stared at the darkness, at the windows, at the great moon through the bars. Aetha tugged at the thin robe she wore, ran her hands over her body and noticed red scratches where the beast’s claws had touched her, linking points of heat that piqued when she touched them herself. Not magic, just remembered heat, echoes of something Aetha had never felt from another being’s touch. Burying her face in her hands, Aetha hissed, “What the fuck?” at herself as much as anything else.

When she could finally move, she closed her robe tight, grabbed two vials of the beast’s blood, and ran as fast as she could to Eiri’el.